Dario Niccodemi (

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, 27 January 1874 –

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Italy, 24 September 1934) was a

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and a

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

who was born in Italy.

Life and career

He spent his youth in Buenos Aires; he met the French

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

''Rejane'' in 1900, became her secretary and translated and adapted for her several Italian works. In this way, he learned techniques which he used later on, beginning with ''L'aigrette'' (comedy in three acts, 1912). His comedies represent the

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

in an ironic and sentimental way, in which his characters are modelled on the society of the beginning of the century. He founded a

theater company Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

in 1921, wrote

novels A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

(''Il romanzo di scampolo'') and two opera

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

s, a ''scampolo'' with music by Camussi, and another, ''La ghibellina'', with music by Bianchi. He has written several plays and screenplays, including ''Scampolo'' (film, 1928)'',

La nemica ''La Nemica'' is a 1952 Italian melodrama film directed by Giorgio Bianchi. Cast *Elisa Cegani: Duchessa Anna *Frank Latimore: Roberto *Vira Silenti: Fiorenza * Jacques Verlier: Gastone *Carlo Ninchi: Monsignore *Ada Dondini: Nonna *Filippo Scel ...

'', '' L'alba, il giorno, la notte'', ''La maestrina'' (film, 1942). About ''

'' he said: "The actress

Paola Pezzaglia Paolina Pezzaglia Greco (13 September 1886 – 17 December 1925) was an Italian theatre and film actress. Early life Pezzaglia was the only daughter of the VIP hair-stylist Gerolamo Pezzaglia (1854–1899) and Adelinda Monti (1854– ...

was perhaps the best Nemica on stage". He carried out the first performance of ''

Six Characters in Search of an Author ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' ( it, Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore, link=no ) is an Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, written and first performed in 1921. An absurdist fiction, absurdist metatheatrical, metatheatric play about th ...

'' by

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

at Teatro Valle in

. Among his fans was Leo Tolstoy, who wrote to prefer ''La nemica'' by Niccodemi to Pirandello's dramas of and to Verga's novels.Cfr. AA.VV., ''I giganti – Lev Tolstoj'', Mondadori, 1970, p. 123.

Other works

* ''Teatrino'', three one-act volumes :first volume includes: **''Lettera smarrita'' **''Il poeta'' **''Festa di beneficenza'' :second volume includes: **''Fricchi'' **''Le tre Grazie'' **''L'incognita'' :third volume includes: **''Scena vuota'' **''La pelliccia'' **''Natale''. *''Tempo passato'', con 17 ritratti *''Il rifugio'', three-act play *''I Pescicani'', three-act play *''L'ombra'', three-act play *''Il Titano'', three-act play *''Prete Pero'', three-act play *''La volata'', three-act play *''L'alba, il giorno, la notte'', three-act play *''Acidalia'', three-act play *''La casa segreta'', three-act play *''La piccina'', three-act play *''La Madonna'', three-act play

Notes

Bibliography

*Dario Niccodemi, ''Teatrino'' volume I (Lettera smarrita-Il Poeta-Festa di beneficenza) commedie in un atto, Milano, Fratelli Treves Editori, Quinto migliaio, 1929 *Dizionario Enciclopedico Universale, Casa Editrice ''Le Lettere'', 1981 * Nuova Enciclopedia Universale, Alberto Peruzzo Editore, C.E.I., 1967

External links

* 1874 births 1934 deaths Italian male dramatists and playwrights Italian male novelists Italian theatre directors 20th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights Italian opera librettists 20th-century Italian male writers {{Italy-writer-stub